A Mother’s Day Message

By Diane Fornbacher

Vice Chair of the NORML Women’s Alliance

On Mother’s Day we celebrate and honor those who gave us life. However, as a mother, every day I am reminded of a terrible war that is destroying the fabric of our families and putting our children at risk. It is the so-called War on Drugs. It happens all around us and is primarily a war on cannabis consumers. Today I hope that mothers will join me in advocating for a cease fire in the war on cannabis consumers.

As a compassionate and reasonable society, it is time to legalize cannabis for responsible adult use. Drug dealers do not card children. Prohibition has only kept our youth in constant contact with pot instead of putting it safely behind the counter. Cannabis belongs in a controlled environment where taxpaying and responsible adults can purchase it.

Let me be clear – I do not want my kids to use or abuse cannabis. But I certainly don’t want them going to jail or losing their chances at a college education if they end up getting caught with a joint. Prisons do not protect children, parents do. By legalizing marijuana we can begin to have more truthful conversations with our kids and teens about using it.

Further, legalizing marijuana will keep families together. Mothers do not deserve to be persecuted in the courts or in the delivery room for their private use of marijuana. Children should not be separated from their parents over pot. Hard working Americans should not lose good paying jobs because they medicate or recreate with cannabis. Mothers played a crucial role in calling for an end to alcohol prohibition almost a century ago. I hope mothers will join the growing effort to end marijuana prohibition today, for the sake of us all but mostly for the children.

One would think that after throwing such huge amounts of money at the War on Drugs for 100 years – one would, at least, want to examine the evidence/research they paid all those bucks for. Makes one wonder – “What’s in the evidence.” If the truth is found there [so then] will the lies be found there. CALL FOR SCIENTIFIC CONCLUSION. They can’t argue with scientific fact. Every Report government has ever commissioned has come back in favor of Cannabis. The fact that all of the findings and recommendations contained in these Reports favor cannabis and have been suppressed – says it all.

I agree, except with mother’s do not deserve to be persecuted in the delivery room. Mother’s using cannabis while pregant is not responsible adult use.

[Russ responds: The data on use of cannabis by pregnant women is controversial, but several studies have shown no deficits and even some improvements in the infants of mothers who have used cannabis during pregnancy. As morning sickness remedies go, there is nothing better.

Please check out “Breathe, Push, Pass”, Paul Armentano’s excellent analysis of the research, before condemning pot-smoking moms to a jail cell and their infants to social services.]

So, really, “people of color” make up 21.4% of the US population, not 33%.

Unless we’re referring to…

White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2009 65.1%

…then the number who are non-white or Hispanic would be 34.9%. Close enough to 33%; however, this number would include White Hispanics, such as, say, Pau Gasol from the Lakers, who I don’t think anyone would mistake for a “person of color”.

So, “people of color” in prison for drugs is actually worse than stated, at 65%, not 55%. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be to say “Two out of three people in America are non-Hispanic Whites, but two out of three people in prison for drugs are people of color.”

However, over the first half of the 2000’s, incarceration of whites for drugs increased by 42.6%, while incarceration of blacks declined by 21.6% and Hispanics declined 1.9%. Overall imprisonment for drugs increased only 0.8%, so roughly the same number of people are behind bars for drugs, but they are getting whiter.

Which actually comes closer to the use rates for cannabis and drugs. 70% of cannabis users are non-Hispanic Whites, and 71% of all drug users are non-Hispanic Whites.